Boards gender balance

In 2013, eni confirmed its commitment to increase the gender quotas in the governing bodies of its subsidiaries.

The collaboration between the HR function and the Corporate governance department has led to the introduction of a series of guidance and monitoring actions that resulted in the achievement of a quota of female representation on the boards of the 47 subsidiaries in Italy as follows:

  • Board of Directors: 29.17% (a figure that rises to 33.53% if we take account the positions designated solely by eni);
  • Statutory Auditors: 31.17% (a figure that rises to 32.35% if we take account the positions designated solely by eni), of which:
    • standing auditors or 28,78% (31.45% for positions designated solely by eni)
    • substitute auditors: 34.78% (33.75% for positions designated solely by eni).

This is an excellent result, not only in absolute terms and for the purposes of compliance with Italian legislation, but also with reference to projections that, at the beginning of the project (in 2012), foresaw the achievement in 2013 of a quota of 25% of female directors (and 27% for the positions designated solely by eni) and 25% of standing auditors.

Awareness of the issue and the management of related actions have made it possible to pursue of a much better than expected result that has seen an increase of over 22% (for directors) and over 24% (for auditors) in the last two years in board renewals (2012 and 2013) and a year ahead of target.

With regard to foreign subsidiaries, appointments to the boards have maintained the goal of achieving a fifth of female directors, in contexts in which there are no regulatory restrictions and local specificities.

Consequently, with female representation at 13.23%, achieved in 2013 on total number of positions, for positions designated solely by eni the figure was 25.84%

2013 also saw the design and launch of the first prototype of a dashboard for the monitoring of diversification of the members of the boards of directors of eni subsidiaries which, with the collection of data entered into a database of board-level positions, in turn supported by the HR data system, aims to extract indicators of diversity within the boards (gender, experience, nationality, education).

A first version of the prototype was presented by the Corporate governance department and shared with the departments involved at the end of year 2013; the commitment of HR is to provide and manage guidelines for the systematic updating of the HR database, with specific reference to foreign companies involved in the forthcoming implementation of the new information system.